Cricket must challenge gender apartheid in Afghanistan | Letter

Jonathan Liew’s insightful article concludes that a unilateral boycott of the Champions Trophy would be a limited gesture in response to the Taliban’s oppressive gender-apartheid regime (

Dignity and humanity of Afghan women must be worth more than game of cricket, 7 January

Two additional points come to mind. First, England acted alone in 1968 in cancelling their tour to South Africa after the prime minister, John Vorster, banned the team for including the “mixed-race” player Basil D’Oliveira. England’s decision put pressure on the International Cricket Council, which introduced a moratorium on all international tours in 1970, resulting in South Africa’s exclusion from international cricket until Nelson Mandela walked free from prison in 1990.

Second, as Liew suggests, India is the key player, holding both the cricketing and economic cards that represent major barriers to effective action: the former as a consequence of the individualisation and privatisation of cricket through the Indian Premier League, weakening players’ country ties, and the latter as a result of India’s economic self‑interest in Afghanistan.

The only hope would be if the ICC had the moral and political courage to lead a multilateral boycott, as it did in 1970, and the member states were prepared to back them. But that seems unlikely, as the England and Wales Cricket Board and other participants are refusing to take part in a boycott of an international competition. Gender apartheid remains unchallenged by cricket in 2025.

Mike Stein

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